International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) of Armonk, N.Y. has frequently implemented new paradigms in business computing. Currently IBM is deploying products and services to support the “On Demand Business.” An “On Demand Business” is an enterprise whose business processes are integrated end-to-end across the company and with key partners, suppliers and customers and which can respond with speed to any customer demand, market opportunity or external threat. The information technology (IT) infrastructure necessary to support the On Demand Business must be flexible and variable, i.e. able to meet fluctuating demand levels. One technique employed to provide a flexible and variable IT infrastructure is a utility computing service. Utility computing is information technology (IT) services based upon “power by the hour” in which a client pays only for the level of computing services actually used. In this paradigm, a resource may be allocated or deallocated based upon a customer's actual need for the resource.
Customers of a utility computing infrastructure transform their IT environment into a variable resource and pay only for the actual computing services received. The utility management infrastructure (UMI) provides the tools and services to effectively manage the utility computing environment. Like electricity, water and gas, IT is treated as another utility. Thus, by eliminating the responsibility of building and maintaining IT operations, providing necessary education and training to administrators, and having to comply with applicable regulations, the customer can focus on their core business while enjoying variable pricing, automated processes and the invaluable resilience and responsiveness of a shared infrastructure provided by the utility provider.
One issue that arises in a utility computing environment is how to determine when a particular event or condition indicates that remedial or other action needs to be initiated. For example, if a particular resource, e.g. memory, is detected to be in short supply, more of that particular resource might need to be made available or allocated. On the other hand, a shortage of memory may be the result of a large, but temporary data transfer. In other words, some events or conditions are more appropriately treated as an anomaly rather than indication of a change in requirements that necessitates the taking of action.
There are programs that provide for the monitoring of a resource, typically either by polling the resource or based on a periodic communication by the resource. However, current systems do not provide a way to filter anomalous events such that such events are ignored or discarded and unwarranted and unnecessary actions are prevented.